Comparison of 3 diagnostic methods for pulmonary tuberculosis in suspected patients with negative sputum smear or no sputum

To explore the diagnostic value of 3 methods for sputum smear-negative and non-sputum patients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). This prospective study enrolled sputum smear-negative and non-sputum patients with suspected TB admitted to Jiangxi Chest Hospital between January 2020 and December 2022. The 3 methods were bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF)-acid-fast bacillus (AFB) smear, GeneXpert MTB/RIF, and gene chip for Mycobacterium strain identification. The diagnostic performance of the 3 tests was evaluated with BALF Mycobacterium culture + BALF-AFB smear + GeneXpert MTB/RIF + Gene chip as the gold standard. A total of 456 samples were collected from 114 patients with suspected TB. Twenty-four patients were diagnosed with TB. The combination of GeneXpert MTB/RIF and gene chip for Mycobacterium strain identification yielded the highest area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of 0.953 and had sensitivity of 90.57%, specificity of 100%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 100%, negative predictive value (NPV) of 92.42%, accuracy of 95.61%. GeneXpert MTB/RIF achieved AUC of 0.906, sensitivity of 81.13%, specificity of 100%, PPV of 100%, NPV of 85.92%, accuracy of 91.23%. BALF-AFB smear had AUC of 0.519, sensitivity of 3.77%, specificity of 100%, PPV of 100%, NPV of 54.46%, and accuracy of 55.26%. The combination of GeneXpert MTB/RIF and gene chip for Mycobacterium strain identification yielded the highest κ of 0.911, while BALF-AFB smear had the lowest κ value of 0.040. For TB in sputum smear-negative and non-sputum patients using BALF Mycobacterium culture + BALF-AFB smear + GeneXpert MTB/RIF + Gene chip as the gold standard, BALF-AFB smear showed low diagnostic performance, while, though GeneXpert MTB/RIF and gene chip had good diagnostic performance, combining GeneXpert MTB/RIF and gene chip improved the diagnostic value to a great extent.